Chen Guangcheng

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2. Although not explicit, legal threats to journalists persist

By Madeline Earp

Even as China’s virtual landscape buzzes with criticism of social injustices, government policy, and propaganda directives, independent journalism and expression are still perceived by the Communist Party as explicit political threats. Authorities also exploit vague legal language to prosecute dissenters based on published content, or bypass due process altogether, holding critics without charge or without notifying family members.

Denmark's Prime
Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is in China this week to meet with top leaders,
according to international news reports. CPJ's Advocacy and Communications
Associate Magnus Ag and Senior Asia Program Researcher Madeline Earp co-wrote
an op-ed calling on Thorning--as she is called in the Danish press--to raise the
issue of press freedom. An edited version ran in the Danish newspaper Politiken today.

Speaking truthfully to China on its repression of human rights can be a tricky endeavor in diplomatic affairs, but Helle Thorning-Schmidt has a prime opportunity to raise press freedom on her trip to China. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not give the issue public priority during their visits earlier this month, but as Thorning meets with top Communist Party leaders and addresses a World Economic Forum meeting in Tianjin, the opportunity must not be wasted.

The
annual crackdown
on commemorations of the June 4 anniversary of the brutal suppression of
student-led demonstrations based in Tiananmen Square in 1989 Beijing is under way,
according to Agence
France-Presse. What's concerning is the number of writers and activists for
whom "crackdown" is the new normal.

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Sina's Twitter-like microblog service Weibo has released new
guidelines to restrict users who share banned content, according to
international news reports. It's the first time such guidelines target users
who adopt puns, homonyms, and other veiled
references to discuss censored news stories without using keywords on the
propaganda department's blacklist, the reports said.

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Pity
those of us who monitor the ups and downs of China's popular microblog platform,
Sina Weibo. For every story its users spread
in defiance of local censorship, there follows a clampdown.
Whether it's the latest strike against rumors, or real name registration,
or newly banned keywords,
there's always another restriction in the works as the service struggles to
keep a lid on sensitive conversations without driving away its user base. "China tightens grip on social media," we
might report, as the Financial Times did
in April. And last October. (The U.K.-based newspaper also noted China's grip tightening on lawyers
in March.) It's not that these headlines are misleading. They simply show how
difficult it is to illustrate the grip that always tightens, but never quite
suffocates.

This
was not an auspicious reaction to the news that Al-Jazeera
English has closed its Beijing bureau after being refused journalist visas.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Hong Lei's responses at today's press
conference did not improve from there, according to a partial transcript
published by Voice of America. His
explanations for the ministry's refusal to renew credentials for the channel's
Beijing correspondent Melissa Chan were a mixture of denial and obfuscation. (Al-Jazeera's
Arabic-language bureau continues to operate with several accredited
journalists, according to The Associated
Press.)

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New York, May 3, 2012--Chinese security officials' ongoing obstruction
of foreign and domestic journalists covering dissident Chen Guangcheng is a worrying
sign for supporters trying to secure his safety, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today. Authorities in Chen's native Shandong province have
kept the blind, self-taught lawyer isolated
from the media since September 2010.

News of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng has been
censored for months. International news reports of his escape last week from incarceration
in his home in Linyi, Shandong--apparently to U.S. protection, although his
whereabouts remain unclear--has
only intensified that censorship. That is unlikely to stop discussion among
those familiar with Chen's case.

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New York, August 11, 2011--Authorities should cease the residential surveillance of writer Ran Yunfei and allow him to communicate freely following his release from jail this week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Ran has been forbidden from speaking publicly, according to The Associated Press.